Most people still think PR is some kind of black magic flacks work on the press -- you sprinkle a little witch’s potion, and TA-DA! You’re in The Wall Street Journal. But PR is a more strategic, sustained practice than that, and it’s a field content marketers need to understand as owned, earned and even paid media continue to intersect.

"If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again," claims the old proverb, but W.C. Fields may have said it best when he added, "Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it." For Will Young, director of Zappos Labs, "try, try" was the easy part. Knowing when it was time to quit, however, was a lesson that took a while to learn. Zappos Labs was created in 2011 to explore new lines of business for the e-commerce company.

For decades, companies have taken for granted the notion that focusing relentlessly on improving customer interactions will lead to greater loyalty from the people who buy their products and services. The relevant metrics usually pertain to familiar questions: How well am I delivering in-the-moment? How are customers experiencing my brand across a range of touch points—call centers, websites, social media, mobile apps, in-store? What will make customers deliriously happy when they’re directly engaged with my brand?

Brands can now track and collect data to answer all sorts of questions, but most of the time these questions are directed internally: “How many people are using are service? How can we leverage our data to optimize our services boost our revenue?” But more often than not, there are other fascinating questions you can answer that’ll appeal to the larger public and help you create the kind of valuable—and perhaps most importantly, exclusive—content that separates you from the

There seems to be a misconception that by sharing one basic social message on multiple social media platforms, companies are doing their job and being active on social media. While there is some truth to this, writing for social media is so much more than that.

When Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover story burst onto the web last week, social media instantly lit up with buzz about her transformation.
But one group remained uncharacteristically mum on the subject: the big brands, the companies that have crews of agencies and social media managers at the ready to insert their names into far-reaching conversations.
Conspicuously absent from the Caitlyn Jenner conversation were the calculated, brand-approved congratulatory messages that we've come to expect will accompany big cultural moments.

Being smart is a huge leg up in life, but it's not a golden ticket. Intelligent people, despite their natural gifts, can, and often do, end up stalled in their careers and unhappy in their personal lives just like those of us with less lofty IQs. Why? That's what a recent poster to question-and-answer site Quora wanted to know0.

Researchers have discovered trends in the way that we perform every major action on Facebook—liking, posting, sharing, commenting and even lurking. And there’s a ton of psychology involved in what makes Facebook so attractive in the first place. Here’s a look at the psychology of Facebook: what makes us like, post, share and keep coming back for more.

For the arts to thrive in our community in the future I believe that inspired, creative leadership should focus on three essential elements: education, access, and inclusion. I am, of course, talking about the “nonprofit” arts, such as classical music, ballet, opera, visual arts, theater, etc., because the truth is that artistic expression in a variety of other forms is doing just fine.

Now that content marketing is officially a mainstream tactic – nine out of ten organizations are marketing with content – brands are strategizing new ways to achieve visibility in a competitive environment. As a marketer, you are tasked with delivering a distinctive brand experience with your content – one that cuts through the clutter and leaves a lasting impression. To help you attract (and keep) the attention of your audience in an increasingly crowded space, below are five content marketing differentiation tactics from the pros.

Spotify is already the biggest music subscription service in the U.S., but it is facing increasing competition as more big players, including Apple and Jay Z, enter the streaming-music market. Today, Spotify is launching a new version that incorporates podcasts, video, and a new, contextually aware approach to music playback.

Where are you most able to execute your mission: inside your facility, or outside of it? There are a lot of reasons we focus on work inside our facilities. Our facilities are, ideally, spaces optimized for mission execution. Galleries purpose-made to show artwork. Performance halls perfectly tuned for the orchestra. Archives with climate control to protect artifacts.

As social networking has taken over the web, and users no longer visit publishers' homepages to find news, Facebook has become a primary funnel for readers, pointing you, your friends, and your family to articles like this one. Today, Facebook is taking that idea to its next logical conclusion. The company launched Instant Articles, a publishing platform that lives natively on Facebook, and will host stories by an elite group of launch partners: the New York Times, BuzzFeed, National Geographic, NBC and The Atlantic.

Millennials don’t find videos; videos find them, according to February 2015 research by Trendera. When the trend forecasting and brand strategy firm asked US millennial internet users how they found videos, nearly four in 10 said they saw what videos were recommended for them. Fully 37% subscribed to certain channels so that their favorite content would come to them when available, 36% relied on online trends to tell them what to view, and just over three in 10 looked at what their friends on social had shared.

Google announced earlier this month that it would be releasing a new Google algorithm update aimed at making all sites on the web mobile-friendly. This update is set to go into effect on April 21. According to Marketing Land, consumers today spend 60% of their time on the internet on their mobile devices. And 3 out of 4 people will search on their smartphone for a business they are looking to work with (Google Partners). These statistics show the importance of having a mobile-friendly website and the reasoning behind Google’s big measures.

In Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, people have been asking questions about Mayer and her impact on the fate of Yahoo from the moment she was appointed CEO in July 2012. She came saddled with great expectations, as she had been Google’s 20th employee, its first female engineer, and the "high priestess of simplicity," as a 2005 Fast Company cover story described her. In 13 years at Google, she had become almost as closely associated with its rise as its founders. She left all that to save an enterprise that can only be described as moribund.